Sunday, September 02, 2012

The Pro-life movement and the Republicans are much more extreme than they present themselves as. They are as Rachell Maddow points out the Pro-Life and Religious Right activists want to make all abortions illegal without exceptions but also are against the use of the " Morning After Pill" as well as the use of contraception such as the birth control Pill which is used routinely by millions of American women . This they intend to accomplish not by passing laws against most legal abortions or just late term abortions but by using "personhood" legislation which states that personhood can be invoked at the very moment of conception. This would lead to a whole host of not just ethical issues but also legal issues since the Zygot is to be considered a citizen of the USA and thereby protected by the US Constitution and laws passed by state and the federal government.

The Religious Right and their enablers want to turn the clock back to the 19th century when in 1870 all forms of birth control were outlawed.

So it appears if anything these extremist view are moving into the mainstream of the Republican Party as they redifine rape as legitimate rape versus statutory rape and date rape or a woman charging her boyfriend or husband with rape . The Republicans and the Religious Right are bit by bit chopping away at the current understanding of what and what does not constitute rape so they are attempting to return America to a time before Roe V Wade to the 1950s or further back to 1870 .

Rachell Maddow on her program in 2011 discusses this issue with Terry O'Neill president of National Organization of Women.

Anti-Choice Shoots Self In Foot re: Contraception

Uploaded by GateKeeper50hotmail on Jun 9, 2011

The anti-choice mob is out again trying to protect every sperm by banning contraception. They have failed before and polls suggest they will fail again with the same 66% against them. They also want to put a "personhood" initiative on every state's ballots. Those of us that believe in choice and a women's reproductive rights should respond by placing initiatives that state constitutional personhood begins when a child is out of the mother, disconnected from her, and breathing on its own.

Terry O'Neill and Rachel Maddow assume that these endeavours on the part of the Pro-Life anti-contraception movement will back fire because they are far too extreme as opposed to the view of average American women. But this clip is from a year ago in 2011 and yet the last few weeks or more we have been hearing Republicans and the Religious Right insist now for instance that rape and incest victims must be forced to carry their child to term thereby doing away with any exceptions for abortion . The thing is that if we look at the Pro-Life movement gong back to the late 1970s on from the get go there has always been this extremist point of view of the leaders of the Religious Right .

As Igor Volsky points out that Todd Akins and Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney are not alone in buying into some bogus science regarding conception and rape arguing Legiitimate rape rarely leads to conception.

Another House Republican is raising eyebrows for suggesting that women who are raped are less likely to become pregnant — just weeks after Rep. Todd Akin (R-MS) sparked controversy for his “legitimate rape” remark.

Speaking at a town hall on Thursday, Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD), responded to a question about abortion by reiterating his longstanding opposition to the procedure in every case except for rape, incest, and if the life of the woman is in danger. But when an audience member pressed Bartlett on the rape exception, he suggested thatfew pregnancies result from rape:

“Oh, life of the mother – exception of life of the mother, rape and incest. Yeah, I’ve always — that’s a mantra, you know, I’ve said it so often it just spills out,” he said. “If you really – there are very few pregnancies as a result of rape, fortunately, and incest — compared to the usual abortion, what is the percentage of abortions for rape? It is tiny. It is a tiny, tiny percentage.” …. [I]n terms of the percentage of pregnancies, percentage of abortions for rape as compared to overall abortions, it’s a tiny, tiny percentage,” Bartlett said. [...]

“Most abortions, most abortions are for what purpose? The just don’t want to have a baby! The second reason for abortion is you’d like a boy and it’s a girl, or vice versa. And I know a lot of people are opposed to abortion who are pro-choice,” Bartlett said.

Bartlett hasn’t always supported the rape and incest exception. In 2001, the conservative congressman — who is in a tight re-election race — “co-sponsored a constitutional amendment that would ban abortions and would include an exception only to protect the life of the mother, not for rape or incest.”

Multiple studies have also disproven Bartlett’s theory that rape is less likely to lead to pregnancy. Research from 2003 “found that a single act of rape was more than twice as likely to result in pregnancy than an act of consensual sex.” The scientists speculated that rapists are more attracted to fertile and ovulating women who not rebuke their advances.

One thing that's also interesting in the case of Rep. Roscoe Bartlett is that he argues that he believes in order to be consitent in his Pro-Life stance is that he is also against the Death penalty. It alaways appears contradictory that someone who claims to be Pro-Life and anti-abortion would be in favour of the Death sentence. Pro-Lifers more often than not claim there is no connection between the two issues.
It is also odd that those who claim to take so much about the life of the pre-born that they have so little regard for those who are born who may have to suffer the mental and physical anguish of poverty. So these Pro-Lifers are often anti-welfare or doing much of anything to help poor children besides just blaming the parents . This is one reason to be dubious about their attachment to every human life as they leave chidren to starve, to die from a treatable illness because they are not deserving of expensive medical procedures or that they are left to attend run down over crowded poor schools thereby limiting their chances of success.

The mass incarceration in the USA is an example of how Pro-Lifers and their Religious leaders have so little regard for those who commit various crimes and in need of rehabilitaion and not incarceration and those who takes drugs are treated by these uberconservative Christians like second class citizens instead of being treated with some compassion and placed in treatment centers.
The Pro-Life activists strangely enough also tend to be the same people who are against any sort of robust gun control program in the USA and love war .

This nation is now spending over $200 billion a year on a justice system that locks up more people than any country on earth . We have more prisoners than China. More than Russia. More than anyone. This colossal system is hitting our communities with staggering financial and human costs — gobbling resources that should be going to strengthening communities.

That’s why we’re teaming up with a slew of great organizations and launching a major new campaign at Brave New Foundation. The campaign is called Beyond Bars . It aims to change Americans’ thinking and inspire action through short videos and shareable graphics exposing the U.S. system of mass incarceration.